This weekend my sweetie, Andrew, and I received a care package from his folks that included a great set of kitchen knives that he inherited from his Grandmother. I was considerably more excited about this new addition to our kitchen than he was. I proceeded to lay them out neatly on the living room floor to take in the gloriousness of our new knives. (Okay, so I’ve been looking at this blog too much). As I was admiring their beautiful walnut handles and gorgeous copper rivets, I realized I didn’t know what many of the knives were even for. When I asked Andrew what he thought they were for, he quickly answered back, “For cutting.”

Part of my motivation for writing Illustrated Bites is to push me to learn more about food and cooking. I have a strong working knowledge of cooking basics but I have a lot to learn. Not knowing anything about knives is one example of a gap in my culinary knowledge. I’m still working on stocking my kitchen since we moved into our new place in October. This is my first “real” apartment and its great to finally have my own kitchen, but its taking time to stock it with all the necessary implements. So far I’ve been making do with super cheap, super dangerous IKEA knives. Which, by the way, are dangerous not because they are sharp but because they bend like an S. I’m excited to share my new kitchen knives and what I’ve learned about them.

Carving Knife: The largest, curved knife is the carving knife. As its name implies, it is for carving slices of poultry or roasts.

Roast Knife: The second largest knife with a straight edge is a roast knife. At first I thought this was a bread knife, but the lack of a serrated edge lead me to investigate further. The roast knife is another form of carving knife and is intended to cut thin slices of meat from a meat roast.

Chef’s Knife: The chef’s knife is an all-purpose knife that is great for chopping. The curved blade allows you to rock the knife back and forth, which allow you to cut/dice at a quicker speed.

Fillet Knife: The Fillet knife has a long, thin, and flexible blade. It is most useful for cleaning fish.

Utility Knife: The Utility knife is a multipurpose knife that perfect for jobs that are too big for a paring knife but aren’t large enough to warrant at chef’s knife.

Boning Knife: This knife is used to remove the main bone from large cuts of meat like ham. The blade is rigid to prevent it from bending as it is being worked around the bone.

Paring Knife: The smallest knife is the paring knife. It is for peeling or small jobs such as chopping garlic. It’s also good for intricate jobs like de-veining shrimp.

Wow, I didn’t know what ANY of those knives were actually called, or what they were intended for. I just tend to pick whatever one looks right for the time. And I totally wouldnt have thought the roast knife was a bread knife as well. 😀

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